Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Finally...

Its been just about a month since I had posted anything and your probably wondering what has happened to me and what has been going on. Back in June I went to my oncology appointment thinking that I was going to find out what my treatments were going to be and found out I had to wait a little longer.

In the meantime...my doctor told me that my stage of cancer is Stage 1 and that the size of the tumor was 1.5 cm which is considered small. Luckily my lymph nodes were negative, meaning that the cancer did not spread...YEAH!!! Once I heard that, I said to myself,  "One step farther away from not having to go through chemo (fingers crossed)". He then mentioned that one more test needed to be done which was the oncotyping (the one that gives me my percentage of recurrence) and of course it was going to take a while because it needed to be approved by insurance....but of course!!!! I really shouldn't complain and I should be thankful that I even have insurance but still....they take forever to approve anything!!! Hence the reason I've had to wait until now find out about my treatments.

Fast forward a couple of days and I finally get the phone call about my results. My doctor tells me that everything is good and that I will only need radiation. I was thrilled when he told me. It's not that I was completely against it, it was just one more thing on my plate that I didn't want to have to worry or stress about. I saw what my mom had gone through and being back in school and finally getting into the medical technologist program I knew it would be difficult. I had worked so hard to finally get in and I didn't want anything from preventing me from completing it. So, that was my reservation about going through chemo.

The results of my test show that I have a 7% chance of the cancer coming back in my lifetime and anything less than 12% is considered low and that's why I don't require chemo. Radiation however comes along with the lumpectomy and today I went to my first radiation appointment. My treatments will be Monday through Friday at the same time for the next 6-8 weeks. I was told by my third week there is a chance I will burn pretty badly in the area that is being radiated but it all depends on how my skin reacts and that I may get tired by the end of the day. Geez.... if this is the worst of it I think I am going to be just fine.

So, at my appointment today they gave me 3 tiny tattoos, one on each side chest and one in the middle of my chest, all the size of a freckle. These are used to line up the the radiation beams when I go for my treatments. I go back on Friday for my first treatment

Needless to say.... I am glad that it's finally getting started and all of this will soon be over.

Until next time....good night.